Five months after 23 children died from eating poison-laced school lunch, the tragedy has resulted in a new school, creche, health centre, roads and electricity. The long forgotten village is finally being turned into a model village, but the grief of its loss is far from over. Archana Masih reports from Dharmasati Gandaman, Bihar.
Rampukar Pandit, whose mournful face became emblematic of the tragedy faced by poor migrants currently, is currently in hospital, but all he wishes is to return home.
'The reality is no one, including some of the names that have shown up in the last few weeks, have any unilateral decision-making power in this,' Facebook India MD Ajit Mohan tells Peerzada Abrar.
Several trains were cancelled, highways and key roads blocked and many thousands stranded for hours on Monday as a nationwide 10-hour shutdown against the Centre's three agri laws disrupted lives across parts of India, particularly in the north.
Another day, another absurd reason for rise in rapes in the country. After the Karnataka legislature linked mobile phones to the rise in rapes in the country, on Tuesday, a Bihar minister on also held mobile phones and non-vegetarian food as reasons for surge in rape cases and favoured ban on cell phones among school students.
'Karpoori Thakur must be remembered by people today who are tired of witnessing fractious politics where corruption, bigotry, hatred and violence seems to have become distressingly recurrent,' says Mohammad Sajjad.
The caste census has already become a hot-button issue. Unless settled earlier, it will echo loudly in the coming assembly elections and eventually in the 2024 parliamentary poll, notes Virendra Kapoor.
In this event, it is the IAF that showed true professionalism, telling the boss they weren't going to fly in that weather. You can see what professionalism and moral courage it takes to say no to your prime minister. Only things like that can keep him safe, observes Shekhar Gupta.
In a significant directive, the home ministry said that state governments shall not impose any local lockdown outside the containment zones without prior consultation with the central government.
Swati Maliwal asked if the girls were being sent to school or if they are being given counselling. She also asked Kumar to ensure that the girls are not pressured in to changing their statements.
Rabri Devi's lawyer told a Delhi court last week that the former chief minister did not have a passport, and that she has never had one, reports M I Khan.
Minority conference organised by the JD-U turned out to be a poor show with few from the Muslim community attending it, exposing the falling credibility of Chief Minister Nitish Kumar as a secular leader, says M I Khan.
This was the ninth day in a row that the COVID-19 tally increased by more than 50,000.
The recovery rate among COVID-19 patients has risen to 66.31 per cent.
Thakur comes from middle-class family and his parents, who are from Sitmani in Bihar, own a shop in Noida.
Bihar education minister tells state assembly that school principal Meena Devi's husband, Arjun Rai, purchased insecticide two days before the mid-day meal tragedy. M I Khan reports
As the country battles the second wave of COVID-19, the government Thursday said the virus may emerge again and so preparations have to be made at the national level in collaboration with states, infrastructure needs to be ramped up while curbs and appropriate behaviour must be followed.
Among the 36 new faces in Prime Minister Narendra Modi's council of ministers, eight are lawyers, four are doctors, two former IAS officers and four MBA degree holders, besides several engineers, making it an eclectic mix of professionals.
After a gap of nearly two years, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday returned to blogosphere to announce the steps taken by the state government to encourage girl's education in the state.
The board is prepared to conduct the exams for class 10 and 12 for crucial 29 subjects, while the Human Resource Development Ministry has directed states to start the evaluation process for the exams already conducted and facilitate the CBSE in evaluation of answer sheets.
A week after the midday meal tragedy in a Chhapra school, which killed 23 children, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar, speaking for the first time after the horrific event, claimed there was a conspiracy behind the tragedy.
Hindu festivals are now becoming occasions when anti-Muslim hatred is expressed freely through slogans and songs that are full of abuse against Muslims or calls to either kill them or humiliate them, observes Apoorvanand.
Wives, daughters, daughter-in-law, son and brother, all linked to politicians, are in the fray for the upcoming Delhi Assembly polls with the Congress fielding the maximum number of political dynasts.
Close on the heels of the mid-day meal tragedy in Bihar, the Allahabad high court has disapproved of teaching staff at government schools being saddled with the implementation of the scheme in Uttar Pradesh.
India registered over 10,000 cases for the tenth day in a row.
A young girl wants to correct her father's name in her school certificate; a man wants his three year unpaid rent from a government doctor, an athlete wants an archery set... Scenes from Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar's Janata Darbar, recorded by Rediff.com's Archana Masih.
Taking exception to Health Minister Harsh Vardhan not mentioning the death of healthcare workers due to Covid-19 in his statement in Parliament, the Indian Medical Association has published a list of 382 doctors who died due to the viral disease and demanded that they be treated as "martyrs".
The BJP slammed the Bihar CM for not organising an official function to promote the exercise in Bihar.
'In this season of inspired mean-spirited campaigning, it still seemed remarkable that we are more likely to learn civics lessons from school children than our leaders,' says Rahul Jacob.
Failure and rejection are part of life. But they can be surmounted by perseverance and pursuit. 33-year-old scientist-turned-equity analyst-turned-author-turned Bihari bureaucrat Yateen Kumar Suman's life best exemplifies how to handle and overcome rejection.
'With the media and social media pulling them down every second day, there are no heroes left.' 'What we have are actors and we want to see them play characters which are real, human and identifiable.'
Here's a recap of the big events that shaped the nation over the weekend.
Inconsolable families of the 22 children, who died after they were fed a meal in school, blame greedy teachers and officials for the disaster, reports M I Khan
A compilation of results from the Vijay Hazare Trophy matches played on Saturday.
India's plant-based meat market is estimated at $30-40 million, largely driven by consumer packaged food. The market size in India is likely to touch $500 million in three years.
The mid-day meal tragedy has sparked a blame game with the Bihar government on Friday refuting Centre's contention of having sent alerts to 12 districts including Saran, where 23 children died after consuming food, over shortcomings in the implementation of the scheme.
The Bihar government's much-hyped bicycle scheme meant for students of class 9 and 10 in government schools has gone off track with a slew of irregularities coming out in the open.
Tejaswi Yadav spoke with Rediff.com about how he plans to wash clean the 'jungle raj' tag that has stuck with his father and former chief minister Lalu Prasad Yadav.
Experts believe that under-reporting is likely to cause an underestimation of the spread of the disease.
The United Nations Children's Emergency Fund on Thursday said the deaths in mid-day meals in Bihar could have been prevented with strict adherence to protocols for preparing the meal.
